8 Best Time Tracking Software Of 2024

Time tracking is important for payroll and accounting purposes, obviously. But, keeping track of how much time your team spends on a certain task or project can help give insight into your workflow. You can better manage projects, predict timelines, keep track of billable hours, stay on top of your budget, and a plethora of other benefits. Time tracking is also a necessary component in the ever-growing “gig economy”. Lawyers are no longer the only profession that bills by the hour. As freelance work grows, so does the need to track time spent on each task, so you can bill accurately, and also budget your time.

Top 8 Best Time Tracking Software Tools

Bonsai – Best for Unlimited Projects
My Hours – best for any budget
Toggl Track – best for freelancers and project management
QuickBooks Time – best GPS tracking
TSheets – best GPS tracking
FunctionFox – best for marketing teams
Time Doctor – best for task monitoring
Paymo – best for small teams

1. Bonsai – Best for Unlimited Projects

Pricing: Starter Plan is $24 per month. All plans have a free trial of seven days

If you are a big business running projects you can’t even count on anymore, then Bonsai is the perfect solution for all your time-tracking needs. It will help you create unlimited project files to meet each deadline on the platform. In addition, the project files will contain tasks, to-do lists, and much more to help your team work in the most organized way possible.

Besides that, whenever someone is working on a task or project, Bonsai will track their time. Every second is accounted for, so you can use this data to bill your clients accurately. After all, even your clients will ask how you have a detailed account so that they can know what they are paying for.

In the long run, this will help you build trust with your clients as you take on new projects. You can take a trial of Bonsai for a week to see if it suits your business. Once you do, you will automatically want to keep using this platform for a long time.

Key Features:

Project time tracking
Custom invoice creation
Detailed reports
Task management
Centralized timesheets

Reasons To Buy:

Bonsai is suitable for all types of businesses, from small to large
Even freelancers and self-employed people can benefit from Bonsai
The platform promises to give you the money back if you don’t like the platform within two weeks of using

Reasons To Avoid:

Extra features require you to buy add-ons

Visit Bonsai

2. My Hours – best for any budget

PRICING:

Free plan, paid plan starts at $6/ mo (per user)

My Hours is a time tracking tool that helps individuals and teams run a profitable business. The cloud-based website and app is simple to use. You can organize projects and track time, via either timesheet or real-time tracker. My Hours also offers a wide range of reports, so you can analyze your data, making for more efficient time-budgeting in the future. A nice bonus is the ability to create invoices in the app. Their free version may actually be robust enough for some users, though if you need to manage a team’s timecard, you will need the paid version.

KEY FEATURES:

Real-time tracker
Reports and analytics
In-app invoicing

REASONS TO BUY:

A simple-to-use robust tool that won’t break the bank

REASONS TO AVOID:

No scheduling features

3. Toggl Track – best for freelancers and project management

PRICING:

Free up tp 5 users; paid plans start at $9/ mo (per user)

Toggl Track is known for a straightforward design with a cutesy interface. Toggl Track fits right into your workflow, with integrations to popular apps and a Google Chrome extension, making it easy to track your time. Toggl Track has color-coded calendar and scheduling features, so you can plan out and visualize your day and projects. Another handy tool that Toggl Track offers is idle detection. Toggl will detect when your computer goes idle, and offer suggested edits to your timeline. While all these features are great, it is worth noting that Toggl track is not a payroll app. However, you can export employee time data and import it to your payroll software.

KEY FEATURES:

Idle detection
Calendar and scheduling
Google Chrome extension

REASONS TO BUY:

Google Chrome extension make Toggl convenient, and it fits into any budget

REASONS TO AVOID:

Lacks payroll and accounting features

4. Clockify – best free option

PRICING:

Free

Clockify is a 100% free time-tracking solution. Even though it is a free app, the feature list is so extensive that it competes with some of the paid versions. Keep track of your time manually or using the timer, quickly edit your time-sheet, customize your calendar and dashboard, export and analyze reports, and communicate and collaborate with your team, all in one place. Managers can manage employee PTO requests and keep track of their projects and expenses. You can even create and send invoices through Clockify. Managers can also see where their employees are and what they are working on.

KEY FEATURES:

Reporting
Customizable dashboards
Invoicing

REASONS TO BUY:

Completely free app with a feature list that goes beyond simple time-tracking

REASONS TO AVOID:

Clockify is best suited for teams, not for individual freelancers

5. QuickBooks Time – best GPS tracking

PRICING:

Plans start at $20 base + $8 per employee/ mo

QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) is an excellent time-tracking app. Since it is part of the QuickBooks family, it acts as an extension of your existing payroll and accounting functions. QuickBooks Time is great for companies that have several employees working in the field or working from home, as it is equipped with outstanding GPS tracking. Scheduling is a nice bonus feature of QuickBooks Time. You can easily schedule and assign tasks. While the scheduling features are not robust enough to replace a specialized productivity app, it is a nice feature to have in a time tracking tool.

KEY FEATURES:

GPS tracking
Third-party integration
Scheduling and calendar

REASONS TO BUY:

Great for existing QuickBooks users that want more control over their time tracking and payroll

REASONS TO AVOID:

Can get expensive quickly

6. FunctionFox – best for marketing teams

PRICING:

Plans start at $35/ mo for the first user + $5 for each additional user

FunctionFox focuses mainly on in-house teams. Companies with workers in the field can also benefit from FunctionFox, but it lacks GPS tracking, so it may not be ideal. FunctionFox is great for project management, and could even be a great option for individual freelancers, given the price point. A nice feature for law firms, or anywhere that bills by the hour, is you can keep track of billable and non-billable hours, right in FunctionFox.

KEY FEATURES:

Invoicing
Reporting and analytics
Differentiate between billable and non-billable hours

REASONS TO BUY:

Built for users who want to manage their time and their projects in one place

REASONS TO AVOID:

No GPS tracking features

7. Time Doctor – best for task monitoring

PRICING:

Plans start at $70/ yr (per user)

Time Doctor is a full-service time-tracker that is great for project management and payroll. What makes Time Doctor stand out is the task monitoring features. Like a lot of time-trackers, you can create and assign tasks, monitor time manually, or with a timer. Once installed, Time Doctor gives supervisors the ability to see the tasks their employees are working on, as they work on them. Time Doctor takes screenshots of employees’ screens at random intervals, and provides managers with a log of keyboard and mouse activity.

KEY FEATURES:

Activity reporting
Keyboard and mouse activity detection
Productivity analysis

REASONS TO BUY:

Full access and insight into team productivity

REASONS TO AVOID:

Employees may find Time Doctor an invasion of their privacy

8. Paymo – best for small teams

PRICING:

Free for 1 user, paid plans start at $9.95/ mo (per user)

Paymo is a desktop and mobile app that acts like a stopwatch. Tracking your time is an easy process with Paymo. Input your task, add any notes you might need, and start the timer. When you’re all done, press stop and the data automatically records. Or, use the desktop stopwatch widget for even simpler tracking. The stopwatch gives you a breakdown of time spent on each task, and even idle time. Paymo has customizable views, to keep your tasks easy to read and manage. Paymo comes with a module called Timesheets. Timesheets is where all time entries are stored, and can be viewed in daily, weekly, or monthly layouts, depending on your needs. From there, you can export reports to keep clients in the loop.

KEY FEATURES: